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Interview with Pakistan's Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi

Ahmed Quraishi - 3/4/2008

Ahmed Quraishi: If you read Senator Joseph Biden’s statement you get the impression than now even Washington is calling for a safe exit for Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf and that the Pakistani president should not complete his five-year term and should instead cut it short and resign.

Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi: Ahmed, this is absolutely false. It looks now as if an impression is being created or a pressure is being built to somehow convince people in Pakistan and the world that pressure is building up [against] President Musharraf. People who have clarity of thought, and there are many who do, despite the deliberate attempts to confuse, know that these elections were a contest between political parties and politicians. Some of them won and some of them lost. This was not an election to elect a president. So how can a group of them, who won only 15 to 20 percent of the vote, put pressure on the president to quit? These people abhor American interference in Pakistani affairs but when someone in America says Musharraf should go, they welcome it.

AQ: So what did Sen. Biden really mean when he talked about a safe exit for our President?

RQ: He did not say anything like that. He issued an immediate denial and said he never called on the Pakistani leader to step down. [Quoting from a paper in front of him] Biden talking about the President, has said, “I have been reported to have said that I called on [Musharraf] to step down. This is totally wrong. The Pakistani leader made it clear to [a Senators Joseph Biden, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel] that he understands his role as a President” and that “the parties should look forward and not backwards” and that “none of us called for him to resign.

AQ: So someone has deliberately misquoted Mr. Biden’s statement to create confusion. What you are saying in effect is this: There is a deliberate attempt to divert focus from the new government in Pakistan to the president and create unrest so that he is forced to step down.

RQ: Exactly. And I think, since we have been watching all this for quite some time now, this is beginning to look like a designed campaign to me. Media is being used to create an impression as if this was a presidential election that President Musharraf lost.

AQ: Coincidently, a story is out [on March 29] that says President Musharraf has become so weak that he’s told PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari he accepts the restoration of the deposed judges on the condition they don’t reopen cases against him …

RQ: Absolutely false. And I am sorry to say that there is a Pakistani wire service, Online, that has quoted an Indian news agency that released this story. This is an outrageously fabricated news item …

AQ: But the story mentions names, it says President Musharraf has conveyed this to Mr. Zardari and asked him to pass the idea on to other politicians …

RQ: [Smiling] … and some Pakistani newspapers ran the story on their front pages. No, there is no truth in all of this. In fact, I think someone in the PPP has even denied receiving any such idea. I think this is really unfair to the President. All they had to do is to pick up the phone and give me a call and confirm the report. That’s journalistic ethic.

AQ: But you see that would have killed the story because you would have told them the truth and that’s really not fashionable right now. Musharraf-bashing is more fashionable if you’re in the media [laughs]. Okay, tell about the man himself. You meet him everyday. How is his morale these days?

RQ: Since he does not take any of this to heart, it has no effect on his morale whatsoever. Some people say he is not in the news, but political parties have won the election and since none of them has an absolute majority, they are all busy in coalition building, and the President has no role in it. That’s why I say there appears to be a plan that is being followed and they are using the media for this to show that the President is the issue and they are spreading this impression across Pakistan.

AQ: At some point President Musharraf has to retire. He has this five-year term as President. The question now is whether he would retire when he completes this term or is there a chance he might call it a day before completing his term in office?

RQ: Everyone in the world has to retire. And everyone knows a time comes when one says to himself I have given it all I can. And let me tell you something about President Musharraf, for Pakistan he is willing to go till the end. And he is doing it. However, as you have said, a time comes when you call it quits. The President has been elected for a five-year term, I do not see the President not completing his five-year term.

AQ: There is talk about clipping the presidential powers. We need to have stability at the top tiers of the Pakistani government, especially within the so-called ‘troika’—the president, the prime minister, and the army chief. I know it’s not very fashionable to say this, but President Musharraf has a military background and he has political experience now. Could he be the ideal person to lead in this transitional period?

RQ: Ahmed, if someone asks my personal opinion, and if someone wants to listen to a sensible advice, all the Pakistani political parties and political leaders, they will show wisdom if they understand that they will not find a bridge, and an umbrella, for Pakistan, for Pakistan’s progress and for Pakistan moving forward like President Musharraf. I can’t see anyone in Pakistan capable of playing this role.

AQ: About Mr. Nawaz Sharif. It’s good to see him going along with all the parties in the effort to build a ruling coalition. But he seems to be showing no flexibility whatsoever toward the President. In fact, he is using the harshest words possible. What’s the reaction in the Presidency?

RQ: Frankly, the Presidential Camp has a great capacity to absorb, for the sake of the homeland. 15 to 20 percent of the voters did vote for Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s party, which is a great thing. Everyone has his own opinion but when this one opinion begins to create disturbance for the homeland’s progress, one should ask himself am I doing the right thing or not. It is also important to remember that almost 80 percent of the vote went to political parties want to work with President Musharraf. So it’s not true that the President is under pressure …

AQ: Or that there is a popular mandate to unseat the President?

RQ: There is no such mandate. In fact, the party winning the largest votes and all the other parties, frankly, less Mr. Nawaz Sharif, we have heard them openly say they are ready to work with President Musharraf for the next five years.

AQ: About the Presidential powers. Some people want these powers reduced because they say ours is a parliamentary democracy. I am biased in favor of the presidential system. Do you think these presidential powers need to be clipped?

RQ: The President has already addressed this. He’s absolutely clear that the elected people in the parties will form the government. And they will run the government. There is no friction here between the President’s office and the Prime Minister’s office and there is no overlap of responsibility and so there is no friction and the President is very clear on this. The prime minister will be doing whatever is in Pakistan’s interest and he will definitely be helped by the President.